Our Trip: Segment Two

We boarded the train in New Orleans, headed for San Antonio, Texas.  Our arrival time in San Antonio was in the wee early hours of the morning, so we were in for a good long ride on the train for this segment of our trip.  The first “major” thing that happened on this ride was that our children crossed the Mississippi for the first time!   I had been on the Mississippi, but never any further west than that.  So, for four of us, it was our first time “that” side of the Mississippi!  We took several pictures of the bridge that we crossed, and several pictures as we were crossing.  My husband took some video as we crossed.  The children loved the bridge, but didn’t really seem to get the significance of the MISSISSIPPI RIVER! 

 

Bridge over the Mississippi!

The ride was long…  We passed the time by reading, eating, talking, watching the scenery (although it didn’t really vary much), and the children watched some DVD’s. 

 

We also SLEPT!  We did NOT get a sleeper car on the train.  If you do get a sleeper car, all of your meals are included…so, it is a pretty good deal, but we just didn’t have enough for that in the budget this time.  HOWEVER, we had NO trouble sleeping in the seats!  The seats reclined, and also had a foot rest that came up , so you could basically lay back, put your feet up, and it was almost like lying flat down in a bed.  They did provide travel pillows, which were nice.  If I had room, I would pack my own next time though.  It is just kind of “weird” to me to use pillows that other people have used, and they were so small that it was hard to get them in just the right place.  With all that said though, we did enjoy our times of rest on the train.  Sitting there, rocking side to side as the train travels down the tracks, watching the scenery pass by…and you can sleep like a baby!  The children, my husband, and I all agree that sleeping on the train, even without a sleep car, was GOOD sleep! 

One of our favorite “cars” on the train was the viewing car.  The windows were basically from top to bottom of the car, so you could get a good panoramic view of the places you were traveling through.  We spent a lot of time in this car! 

 

We finally arrived in San Antonio! 

 The train at the station in San Antonio.

We didn’t really think about what we would do when we arrived in the wee hours of the morning.  The conductor announced shortly before we arrived that there was a nearby “Denny’s” that would be open for anyone wanting an early breakfast!  We decided that we would go there for a while, and then figure out the rest from there.  We asked the VERY NICE staff at Denny’s if they knew where our hotel was located.  They pointed us in the right direction.  I called ahead and asked if they would store our luggage until we could check in later that day.  They agreed to do so.  Shortly after we finished a small breakfast at Denny’s, we walked to our hotel, dropped off our luggage, and explored the areas of the city near there.  My husband had lived in a city not far from San Antonio when he was growing up, so he remembered a lot from visiting San Antonio many times when he was younger.  My next blog post will be about our two days spent in San Antonio!

 

The Tower of the Americas in San Antonio from the Amtrak Station.

 

The children posing as we walked to Denny's with the Tower of the Americas in the background.